Number Of Companies In ESP’s Top Sponsor Rankings Shrinks

Pressure on sponsorship budgets reflected in amounts spent and total number of top sponsors.

For the first time ever no new sponsors were added to the list of biggest U.S. sponsors in 2016, just one year after a record 21 companies joined the rankings, according to ESP’s annual analysis of companies spending at least $15 million.

In addition, 15 companies on the 2015 list dropped their spending below the $15 million threshold, lowering the 2016 total to 106 companies.

Overall, the rankings appear to reflect a sponsorship marketplace constricted by multiple factors, including competition for dollars from other marketing channels, increased emphasis on activation spending over fee spending, and companies in major sponsor categories such as beverages and packaged goods holding tight to their purse strings in the face of little to no sales growth.

Spending trends for the companies on the list show that only 19 (18 percent) increased sponsorship allocations from 2015 to 2016, while 31 (29 percent) spent less and 56 (53 percent) spent the same year to year.

Also contributing to the list’s contraction: declining NASCAR team sponsorship spends. Six of the 15 companies that left the rankings in 2016 drastically reduced or eliminated NASCAR team spending: Aaron’s, Inc.; The Kraft Heinz Co.; Bass Pro, Inc.; The Clorox Co.; Go Daddy and The Scotts Company LLC.

Meanwhile, positive mobility on the list was not necessarily due to organic spending growth, as the two biggest upward moves in the rankings resulted from corporate mergers. EMC Corp.’s acquisition by Dell Technologies Inc. puts Dell at number 58 (EMC was number 88 in 2015), while Marriott International, Inc. moved from number 68 to number 43 on the strength of its merger with Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

At the list’s highest echelons, even though three of the top four sponsors each cut about $10 million in spending in 2016, the big four remained the same as 2015: PepsiCo, Inc.; Anheuser-Busch InBev; The Coca-Cola Co. and Nike, Inc.

The top 10 remained the same, although the order below the big four changed. Adidas North America, Inc. moved from number seven to number five, while Ford Motor Co. moved from number eight to number seven—primarily due to a new NFL deal. Meanwhile, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. dropped from number six to number eight—in large part because of the shuttering of one of its NASCAR teams, Michael Waltrip Racing.

Verizon Communications, Inc. and General Motors Co. switched positions at numbers nine and 10, with Verizon moving up mostly thanks to a new NBA partnership.

Individual spending trends among the top 10 were similar to the list overall, with six of the biggest spenders cutting spending in 2016, three spending more and one spending the same.

In the top 20, Under Armour, Inc.—which moved from number 21 to number 18—replaced Sprint Corp., which dropped from number 19 to number 22.

Continuing the pattern of the previous two years, the 11 biggest spenders of 2016 belong to just four categories—beverage, auto, sport apparel and telecommunications. The three categories with the most companies represented among the 106 biggest sponsors also did not change: auto (11 companies); beverage (nine companies, down from 10 in 2015 with the loss of Bacardi U.S.A., Inc. after a one-year appearance); and bank (nine companies).

The spending estimates for the companies on the list reflect amounts spent on sponsorship fees of U.S. properties and the portion of spending on international properties that is directed to the U.S. market.

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